The present invention relates in general to semiconductor devices and to methods of fabricating semiconductor devices, and more particularly, to methods of fabricating in situ masks for use, for instance, in fabricating of one or more semiconductor devices.
As is known, semiconductor device fabrication typically involves the process of transferring a mask pattern to a wafer using an etching to remove unwanted material, for instance, to facilitate forming fin structures and/or gate structures of fin-type field-effect transistors (FINFETs) or to facilitate forming field-effect transistors (FETs) in general. This process is generally referred to as lithographic processing. As the size of technology nodes continues to decrease, significant challenges continue to arise due (in part) to issues related to traditional lithographic processing techniques, including issues related to mask formation.